Annecy Prizes ‘Little Nicholas,’ ‘No Dogs or Italians Allowed’ Win Big at Animation Fest

“Little Nicholas – Happy As Can Be” scooped this year’s Annecy Animation Festival’s top Cristal Award for best feature in a 20 plaudit award adjudication which also saw Wes Anderson win a Jury Award for best commissioned film.

The biggest winners at Annecy this year, however, was the Festival itself, animation at large and, when it came to movie prizes, France in particular.

Directed by Benjamin Massoubre and Amandine Fredon, Annecy’s top feature winner is classic French animated feature fare in artistic and industrial terms: 2D, based on a literal source – writer René Goscinny and illustrator Jean-Jacques Sempé’s comic-strip, and featuring large Gallic IP: Little Nicholas, France’s quintessential schoolboy, who here meets his makers, Goscinny and Sempé.

Produced by Aton Soumache, one of the dominant figures on France’s animation scene and producer of “The Little Prince,” France’s biggest movie export in 2015, “Little Nicholas” may look exquisite at times, but, family fare, packs a more modern pace and focus on entertaining than much arthouse 2D cinema.

The top Cristal for “Little Nicholas” surprised some. “Unicorn Wars,” “Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman” and even “Nayola,” from Portugal’s José Miguel Ribeiro were all talked up during the week as competition frontrunners.

As prizes played out, the artistically ambitious “Blind Willow” – a feature which mixes rotoscoping, 2D and 3D, freely blending short stories from Haruki Murakami – had to settle for a Jury Mention.

Loved by stop-motion fans at Annecy, “No Dogs or Italians Allowed” – directed by France’s Alain Ughetto and based on the travails of his grandfather, an Italian immigrant – snagged the festival’s Jury Award and a GAN Foundation Award.

Signe Baumane’s gender role farce, “My Love Affair With Marriage,” about a woman suffering throughout her life the pressures of conformist gender typecasting, received a popular Jury Award mention.

Running June 13-18, the 2022 Annecy International Animation Film Festival issued 13,248 accreditations, including MIFA market badges, 8% up on total attendance in 2019, its prior all-time high.

Such record attendance “simply reflects how important animation film is worldwide: a major art form and an industry with remarkable agility that is constantly developing,” Annecy Director Mickaël Marin declared during Annecy’s closing ceremony.

In town to present “Pinocchio” for Netflix and satiate his love of animation, Guillermo del Toro had already announced that Mexico will be the guest country at Annecy in 2023. Jorge Gutiérrez, creator of “Maya and the Three,” will design the 2023 festival poster. “Mexican animation is little known and deserves to be the focus of a great national overview,” said Annecy artistic director Marcel Jean.

2022 ANNECY INTL. ANIMATION FILM FESTIVAL OFFICIAL PRIZES

FEATURE FILMS

GAN FOUNDATION AWARD FOR DISTRIBUTION

“No Dogs or Italians Allowed,” (Alain Ughetto, France, Italy, Switzerland)

JURY MENTION

“My Love Affair with Marriage,” (Signe Baumane, Latvia, USA, Luxembourg)

JURY MENTION

“Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman,” (Pierre Foldes, France, Luxembourg, Canada, Netherlands)

JURY AWARD

“No Dogs or Italians Allowed,” (Alain Ughetto, France, Italy, Switzerland)

CRISTAL FOR A FEATURE FILM

“Little Nicholas – Happy as Can Be,” (Amandine Fredon, Benjamin Massoubre, France, Luxembourg)

CONTRECHAMP

CONTRECHAMP JURY DISTINCTION

“Chun Tae-il: A Flame That Lives On,” (Jun-pyo Hong, South Korea)

CONTRECHAMP AWARD

“Ikuta no Kita,” (Koji Yamamura, Japan, France)

SHORT FILMS

AWARD FOR A FIRST FILM

“The Record,” (Jonathan Laskar, Switzerland)

JURY MENTION

“Anxious Body,” (Yoriko Mizushiri, France, Japan)

JURY AWARD

“Steakhouse,” (Spela Cadez, Slovenia, Germany, France)

CRISTAL FOR A SHORT FILM

“Amok,” (Balázs Turai, Hungary, Romania)

GRADUATION FILMS

JURY MENTION

“Mom, What’s up with the Dog?,” (Lola Lefevre, France)

JURY AWARD

“A Dog Under a Bridge,” (Rehoo Tang, China)

CRISTAL FOR A GRADUATION FILM

“Persona,” (Sujin Moon, South Korea)

SHORT FILMS

Animation “Off-Limits”

“OFF-LIMITS” AWARD

“Intersect,” (Dirk Koy, Switzerland)

VR WORKS

JURY MENTION

“Goliath: Playing With Reality,” (Barry Gene Murphy, May Abdalla, United Kingdom, France)

CRISTAL FOR THE BEST VR WORK

“Glimpse,” (Benjamin Cleary, Michael O’Connor, France, Ireland, United Kingdom)

TV AND COMMISSIONED FILMS 

TV Films 

JURY AWARD FOR A TV SPECIAL

“The House,” (Emma de Swaef, Marc James Roels, Niki Lindroth Von Bahr, Paloma Baeza, United Kingdom, U.S.)

JURY AWARD FOR A TV SERIES

“Two Little Birds,” (Alejo Schettini, Alfredo Soderguit, Argentina, Colombia, Uruguay)

CRISTAL FOR A TV PRODUCTION

“My Year of Dicks,” (Sara Gunnarsdottir, U.S.)

Commissioned Films

JURY AWARD FOR A COMMISSIONED FILM

“Aline,” (Wes Anderson, France)

CRISTAL FOR A COMMISSIONED FILM

“Save Ralph,” (Spencer Susser, U.K.)